The Iron Man 3 panel ended up blowing everyone away! It was definitely one of the highlights of this year's Comic-Con. Of course, the Iron Man panels have never failed to impress, but this time around our favorite armored superhero looks like he's in for some trouble.

Robert Downy Jr. comes dancing down the aisle onto the stage, asks the fans how much he loves us and the crowd cheers. He then asks the fans how much they love him, and the crowd screams even louder. He then asks why we haven't seen any footage of Iron Man 3 yet… and they show it!!

Here's what we saw...

Tony Stark is in his tech workshop about to test out his new Mark VIII suit. He asks Jarvis to play some seasonal music, and puts on Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis. He then begins the process of putting on his armor by striking a pose with his hand out, his body is the remote for his new suit. He slaps his wrist and strikes a pose again.

All of a sudden, his glove flies across the room and awesomely attaches itself to Stark’s hand. He then proceeds to call over more pieces, and they come flying at him at a rapidly, one hits him and knocks him over, but he uses his rocket gloves to keep him from hitting the ground. Some of the other pieces are hitting things in the room and breaking them, but they eventually all finally attach to him. The last piece to attach itself to him is his face mask, and Stark has to fly and flip over, as it rockets towards his face upside down. He land on the ground in his classic three-point Iron Man pose.

We cut to Stark talking with Happy (Jon Favreau), who apparently quit his job as Stark's bodyguard because he gets crap from his friends that he's Iron Man's body guard, and why does Iron Man need a body guard? During the conversation, Happy frustratedly mentions that his grandmother lives in New York City, and ended jumping out of a two-story window after she saw a giant robotic snake coming out of the sky. As you know that's a reference to The Avengers, Stark tells him not to worry because they took care of it. At one point Happy even gives Stark a hard time for being one of “the Super Friends.”

The footage then cuts to a montage of footage showing Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Rhodey (Don Cheadle).

Pepper is picking up a damaged Iron Man mask from a pile of rubble.

We see Guy Pearce briefly, dressed in a suit, and then there's a villainous voice over... “Ladies, children, Some people call me a terrorist. I consider myself a teacher. Lesson number one: there is no such thing as heroes.”

It cuts to a few helicopters flying up to Stark’s Malibu mansion where they proceed to fire a barrage of missiles. Pepper and Tony are blown backwards as the mansion crumbles and falls into the ocean. Stark's house is completely destroyed. This includes all of Iron Man's suit, except for the one he is wearing. We see the other Iron Man suits blowing up in laboratory. Tony, who is wearing his new gold and red suit, is taken down with the wreckage and sinks into the ocean.

The title of the film fades in and the screen fades to black.

But that's not the end. The footage fades back in to show us a close-up of hands... with 10 rings. The camera pulls back and we see someone stroking his grey beard... you all know who this is. There's then a shot from behind of the villain cocking a pistol. It pulls back even further to reveal a bearded Sir Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin.

Hell yeah! The footage shown was completely badass, and I wish you could have been there to see it. I did the best I could to describe it, but unfortunately it doesn't do the footage justice. If we're lucky, maybe one day Marvel will release it for you to watch!

Joey Paur — Co-Founder / Editor of GeekTyrant.com, and if you haven't noticed I write… a lot. Movies are my passion and I live and breathe all things geek. This site is part of my life's work, it's a part of me. I love what I do, and I enjoy sharing everything I can with you when it comes to movies and geekery. In my spare time I travel to the netherworlds to battle demons.
@JoeyPaur | joeypaur@geektyrant.com